“What did you say?” she asked again.
I sighed. “I’m a shadow”
She chuckled then started laughing. “That’s really funny”
“I’m serious, Dara”
She placed the back of her hand on my forehead and inspected me closely with her eyes. “Are you sick or something?”
I took her hands and enclosed them with mine. My heart was pounding so hard inside my chest. I’ve never felt this nervous before. Two thoughts are battling inside my head right now – to continue telling her about me or to stop. But the former won. I closed my eyes for a moment, silently wishing that I won’t regret this. I slowly opened my eyes. She screamed and bounced away from me.
“Y-your eyes!” she gasped out loud. I felt my heart gave a painful squeeze seeing her reaction. I blinked and I know my eyes are back to normal. I tried to reach for her hand but she cringed away. “W-what are you?”
“I told you, I’m a shadow” I patiently said, resting my hands on my lap.
“A-a what?”
“A shadow” I repeated. “Dara, you have to listen-“
“Oh my God!” she suddenly gasped. “So, I wasn’t imagining it! His eyes DID turn all black!”
“Who-?”
“Kwon Jiyong” she answered with wide eyes. “I thought I was just imagining it. And now. . .” she trailed, looking faraway. So, Jiyong wasn’t really THAT careful around her, was he? “Is he. . . is he like you?”
“Yes” I nodded, seeing that there’s no reason to deny it.
Silence then enveloped us.
“Don’t you want to know about. . . about us?” I asked after a while as I can take her silence anymore.
“I. . . I don’t know what to ask” she confessed. “I don’t even know. . .” she chuckled lightly.
“Don’t you trust me?” I asked.
“If course I do!” she exclaimed. “It’s just that I . . . I don’t know . . .”
I looked at her for a while. “If you’re not ready to hear me out, yet, it’s fine with me but I need to tell you this, Dara. I’ll be leaving the choice on you on when you want to hear me”
She chewed on her lower lip, looking hesitant. It breaks my heart to see her hesitancy, I just wanted to pull her close to me, hug her and comfort her.
“I. . . I like to hear it now” she finally said.
I managed a small, forced smile. “Like what I said, I’m a shadow and so are Jiyong, Youngbae and Seungri. The shadow characteristics can only be passed onto the male offspring but there are instances that it skips generation. Basically, our abilities came from. . . darkness, making us part-evil”
Her eyes widened. As much as I want to stop, I can’t.
“Our abilities can be compared to what those folklore stories call as warlocks but there are things that we can do that they can’t and vice versa. The most common things we can do are blending in dark places and turning into crows. The downside of it, we tend to lose control sometimes. It’s like the evil part of our blood takes over our mind, heart, body – our system. Shadows who were fortunate to get let’s say, educated, like me have lesser tendencies to have attacks like that unlike Kwon Jiyong and his friends” I sighed. I don’t really want to tell her this. “When Kwon Jiyong hurt you, he’s aware of his actions but he can’t help it. You’re pretty lucky he got hold of it because everytime we’re being dominated by that dark part of us, we can’t stop until we kill the person”
